The owners of Dublin-based software company CarTrawler are reported to be lining up a £150m (€175m) sale of the business.

It comes just two years after Irish brothers Greg and Niall Turley sold their one-time start-up for €90m, making huge returns for themselves and a small number of partners.

Now new owners ECI, a private equity firm, have hired investment banks to advise on a possible sale.

CarTrawler provides web-based software to airlines, travel agents, tourist agencies and others so they can provide a car-hire booking service. The business has sales of over £425m.

The business was established in 2004 and its online booking system is used in 175 countries. The Turley brothers are understood to have retained a minority stake after selling the bulk of the company to ECI, but stepped down as directors of parent company eTrawler at the end of last year.

Before the 2010 sale, the brothers each owned about 43pc of the company, with Bobby Healy, CarTrawler's chief technical officer, holding a 10pc stake while chairman David Hargaden had 3.5pc.

The Turley family were previously involved in Argus Car Hire, which was sold to Irish Car Rentals in 2007.

CarTrawler announced the acquisition of the online assets of Holiday Autos just two weeks ago. Last night CarTrawler could not be reached for comment.